The creation and analytics behind Starhawk (preview)

It may not seem like it but the release ofStarhawk is a huge undertaking. Within a 72-hour span, LightBox Interactive will be releasing the unconventional third-person shooter worldwide. That’s doznes of countries, across several time zones and 22 languages. There will be thousands of people online, said Dylan Jobe, president of studio.

The beta earlier this year helped to validate the networking infrastructure, he said. But still, the team is on pins and needles even if they used data from the beta to tune and refine the game.

I was talking with Jobe a few days before the launch, and mostly asked about players should expect this week. We went over the basics. He said the initial patch that players will download on start-up will be a hundred megabits. (It’s actually more than 400 MB.) He offered an overview of the game and its modes.

Players descend to the planet surface on these drop pods. Players can choose the location where they fall.

STARTING WITH A CONCEPT: What players can expect is a shooter that’s chockful of options that includes a robust multiplayer mode, co-op and single-player campaign. The last two are unexpected given that Warhawk, the spiritual predecessor was an online-only multiplayer game. But strangely enough, Starhawk didn’t have its origin in either of any of those modes.

“We took an approach that I must admit some people told us was kind of backward,” Jobe said. “We knew we wanted to have a build and battle system. We wanted to do something for the shooter genre. We started on our core mechanics. We were running around with a blue stick man for many months. Once we got the mechanics that we were happy about it, we built the universe, the lore and the backstory. We created the macro universe.

“Now we have the third layer. Let’s extract one personal story for the person in the universe. Let’s use that for our single player campaign. That’s how we define our hero Emmett Graves. It fit the universe. It created the right texture.”

Meet the hero of Starhawk, Emmett Graves. The campaign mixes sci-fi and Western elements.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF SPACE SAGA: Starhawk’s protagonist is special because he’s the only person in the universe that didn’t become a mutant creature called an Outcast, when he was exposed to rift energy. LightBox Interactive brought in game writer Koen Wooten to flesh out the story and create a sci-fi story with element of the Wild West. When Jobe mentioned this, I immediately thought of Firefly.

“We wanted to do a story that wasn’t another war righter,” he said.

As for the mission design, it will show off some of the real-time strategy elements that elevate the game from its peers. The quest designers give players a problem and gamers can choose different buildings and methodologies to solve it. Some players may take an approach that uses four-wheel vehicles. Another may want to focus on an air assault.

Jobe advises players to go through the single-player mode. Although it’s not exactly a tutorial, he said it will prepare players to duke it out online.

Rift energy is the main resource in the game. It lets players build structures to defend and attack.

LEARNING FROM SOCIAL GAMES: It certainly sounds as though the campaign got the care it needed, but Jobe emphasized that the multiplayer was the real focus. That’s where the legs of the product is, he said. LightBox Interactive didn’t skimp on adding community features, a lobby and ridiculously detailed back-end that tracks how players build, use weapons and fight.

Jobe said the team, which is based in Austin, Texas, learned a lot being around the culture of social gaming in that city. They created a robust system for Starhawk that emulates the type of analytics that goes into social games. It allows the team to mine the data in how gamers play and use that information to balance the game.

It even gives LightBox insight into how certain countries and cultures play. Jobe talked about this in a speech at South by Southwest. He outlined findings like how Russia was the most proficient using proximity mines and how Mexican players specialized in using the auto turret. The way they build bases or attack may be reflection on the culture they grew up in, he said.

Land vehicle vs. air vehicle: Is this an even match-up? The LightBox team can quickly find out by looking at the data.

MINING DATA FOR GAMEPLAY FLAWS: For more practical issues, the software running in the background also will help the team address complaints. If they see players criticizing the rocket launcher because it’s overpowered, they can bring up the data and see if reality reflects that perception. If it does, the developers can change it with their hot fix system. It makes the conversation between the developer and community more responsive and effective. It’s something that other shooters such as Battlefield 3 have been doing but Starhawk appears to do it at a faster clip.

The data will also affect what kind of DLC that LightBox will offer in the future. Jobe said there were some ideas such as new turrets and other vehicles that were left on the cutting room floor. They could make their way to the game in the future, but it depends on what parts of combat need improvement.

Lastly, in multiplayer, Jobe has some advice for players. Before heading into battle, he urges them to come up with a build plan. It’s a similar concept to build olders in real-time strategy games such as StarCraft. It’s just a way for teams to figure out what they’re going for so that a base is properly built and there aren’t five garages filled with Razerbacks.

To foster this concept, LightBox gives players their own personal lobby, where they can invite teammates to discuss strategy before a match. Jobe said the team wanted to give players a space station or house in a frontier, where they can treat it as their plot of land. Players can build structures there and mess around. Once you’re there in a party, the group can launch to a match from there.

Gieson Cacho

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